Choosing Waterbirth: Reclaiming the Sacred Power of Birth (4 page)

The next week, after a textbook labor, I gave birth to my first water baby, Sampath Moses. I will never forget the sensation I felt as I lowered myself into the water.

Immediately, I was almost weightless and the unbearable pressure that had felt like a tight band across the bottom of my abdomen was gone. I sighed, sinking deeper into the water, completely relaxing. As the next contraction came, I found I could handle it better, breathing deeply through it; as it passed, it seemed that every spare muscle in my body turned to jelly and all the tension dissolved into the warmth of the water. Soon I was falling asleep between contractions, drifting away somewhere, forgetting even that I was in labor.

Like the answer to a prayer, waterbirth met my criteria about giving birth naturally in the most gentle and caring way I could. Afterwards, I felt a true sense of accomplishment, as if I had done something huge and amazing. And so I had. I had accomplished my goal of bringing a child into this world in a way that recognized and honored what an amazingly tough event it is to be born and what a fantastic and difficult thing it is to give birth. I think this is what every birth is meant Page 16

to be: an experience that leaves a woman feeling accomplished and strong, a child feeling loved and secure. Birthing is a rite of passage for woman and baby. It is not simply about bringing a body out of a body, but about bringing a soul from a soul.

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Chapter 4—

Why Water?

Most people are drawn to water. After a hard day's work, few things feel better than a soak in the tub. Likewise, in the midst of the summer months, few things are as refreshing as a cool swim. Water soothes, relaxes, and rejuvenates, providing an easy way to unwind and let go of the tensions built up during the day.

During pregnancy, water becomes even more desirable. As the pregnancy progresses and your body grows heavier and more unwieldy, total immersion may be the only time you feel relief from the constant pressure of the growing fetus on your lower back and pelvic region. Soaking in the tub at this time can feel so good, you may never wish to get out.

It is partly because of this that the first recorded waterbirth came about.

In 1805 in a small village in France, a woman labored long and hard to birth her baby. After two days, she was physically and mentally exhausted. As hydrotherapy was common in 1800s France, the attending doctor suggested the use of a bath. I know how she must have felt sinking into that water. To her, it must have seemed like the only reprieve from a nightmare. The doctor and others looked on, unsuspecting of the rapid changes that were happening inside her body. What they did notice was the almost immediate relaxation that being in the water provided, causing her to have a peaceful, composed, expression. Only a quarter of an hour later, pushing contractions began and the woman remained in the water,

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where her baby was born. Even though her labor had been lengthy and difficult, after their waterbirth, mother and baby were reported as being in good health, consistent with a normal labor and delivery.

Midwives the world over have often used water in various forms during labor and birth. Hot showers and hot towels are used to ease lower back pain during the contractions, hot compresses are applied to the highly elastic tissue called the perineum next to the vaginal opening to help it to soften and stretch, and cool cloths are laid across the back of the neck and on the forehead to sooth and relax. The natural soothing properties of water for labor and birth have long been noted, but it was only fairly recently that actual delivery of the infant into water was used.

In the early 1960s, Igor Charkovsky pioneered the use of water for labor and delivery in the former Soviet Union. Later in the 1980s, Michel O'Dent spearheaded the movement in France, and in Europe. Since then waterbirth has migrated to many other countries, including the U.S., and it has been estimated that nearly 25,000

women have given birth in water in the U.S. since 1981.

This growth happened even though the medical establishment has not especially accepted the waterbirthing method; even though there are a very limited number of qualified practitioners who attend waterbirths; and even though it is very difficult to acquire a tub. Even with these obstacles, women continue to choose to birth their babies in water. In light of this the question becomes—why? What is it about waterbirth that has so many women making this choice for their births?

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Chapter 5—

The Great Appeal

A universal statement for a woman who has had one waterbirth is that she would ''never give birth in any other way." I have found this to be personally true. Having had my first baby in water, I never even considered anything else. The pain was so reduced that in contrast to, "I will never have another baby again!" which is typically uttered after a first baby's birth, I said, as I gazed down at the baby in my arms, "I could do that again, not right away, but in a few years, definitely."

This is a very different statement. It meant that my experience of birth did not leave me feeling helpless, or worn out, or beaten up, or degraded. It meant that I remained feeling capable and confident about my ability to give birth even immediately after the event. This is part of the reason why waterbirth is so appealing. It allows you to view every part of your birth, even the intense parts, as a positive experience.

In addition to this empowerment, laboring and delivering in water has actual, physical advantages.

During childbirth endorphins are released in your body which help you feel less pain. However, anxiety can cause the release of adrenaline, which inhibits the effect of the endorphins. Adrenaline also inhibits the release of oxytocin, the hormone that causes uterine labor contractions, which means feeling anxious and nervous can not only make you feel more pain, but it can also make your contractions less effective.

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Getting into a soothing tub of water relaxes you and allows your body's natural endorphins and oxytocin to kick in. Immediately, your contractions are less painful and more effective, which may account for why waterbirths are proving to be consistently shorter than traditional births.

On top of the internal relaxation effect is the topical effect of the warm water. It is supportive and surrounding. It buoys you up and cradles you in its warmth. It allows tight and tired muscles to relax fully, to release their tension and to be rejuvenated for the next contraction. The water also acts topically to soften the tissues of the perineum, making episotomies much less necessary, and causing fewer, and less severe, tears.

Alternately, epidurals, the injection of a local anesthetic into your lower spine to provide numbness from your lower back down, while touted as safe, effective painrelievers, can cause a host of problems. If you have an epidural, you are more likely to have a forcep or vacuum delivery, where your baby is pulled from the birth canal with metal tongs or with a suction cup attached to his head. There is a greater risk of the fetal heart rate slowing down from lack of oxygen because your blood pressure has fallen way down, your pushing stage is likely to be considerably longer, and you are twice as likely to have a cesarean section.

In contrast, when a person is immersed in a tub of warm water, the blood flow actually increases, providing more oxygenated blood for both you and your baby, which may be another part of the reason that the contractions appear to be even more effective in water. Waterbirths are also notably shorter in both the dilation stage when the cervix is opening to the full ten centimeters, and in the pushing stage when the baby is pushed down through the birth canal and out. And there are none of the longterm negative side effects associated with epidurals, such as backaches, migraines, neck pain, or local numbness.

Viewed as a whole, it is no mystery why waterbirth is growing so rapidly in popularity. It offers so many benefits—less Page 21

pain, shorter labors, no negative side effects for the mother, all within keeping to the ideal of a natural birth—that
not
choosing a waterbirth is the greater mystery.

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Chapter 6—

First Impressions

Another advantage of waterbirth is how it alters the baby's experience of being born. Consider for a moment what a baby goes through on its way into the world.

What a difficult thing it is to be born, being squeezed and molded and then drawing a first breath. Probably the most risky and harrowing journey of our lives, it is in fact, our first physical experience. Up to that point, we were warmly and safely encased in water. All our needs were met as we floated weightlessly, listening to the steady rhythm of our mother's heart. When the moment of birth came, all that changed. We had to breathe immediately or we would die; we had to cry out for food and comfort; we had to hold our own against the unfamiliar force of gravity. Coming into this world, we were immediately challenged and our first impressions of it were of the fight and struggle to survive.

Consider what it's like to be so new and bewildered. All your experiences to date are of being warm and cared for. Imagine the shock of the cold air. It is at this moment that a new baby breathes, taking its first searing breath as its lungs expand and air rushes in. Imagine how that must feel. From Page 23

the cocoon of the womb, we squeezed down the birth canal, and the first thing we are met with is cold air.

Our next experience is of bright lights. New eyes that have only seen the rosy glow of the sun through the pregnant mother's belly, now open and are blinded by lights.

Then there is the noise, the loud, unmuffled, snapping of orders, the issuing of commands; even the happy noises of rejoicing are piercing to the new baby's ears.

Confronted with these realities, babies screw their eyes shut and, opening their mouths to exhale their first breath, they wail. So much fear and pain is heard in that first cry. It is the sound of anguish, the sound our hearts make when everything that we have loved and known has been taken from us. Babies feel this way at birth and they cry out for what they have lost, the warmth and security of the womb and the closeness of their mother. They cry because they are bewildered and scared and because they have no other way of letting us know that they do not understand or like what is happening to them. Nothing touches or melts the heart more than this.

Yet how is their plaintive cry met? Once born, they are whisked away, carried to a hard metal scale, wrapped in a cotton blanket (surely an unfamiliar sensation for them) and laid there to be weighed. Silver nitrate is dropped into their eyes to "burn" off the film that covers them, a film that, having protected the eyes from infection in the womb, is now considered a risk factor for infection. Their limbs are checked, stretched for their ability to move. Finally, the babies are "cleaned up" and eventually returned to their mothers.

Hearing her soothing, familiar voice, feeling the touch of her skin, nonetheless the first impression has been made and the baby soon settles into a suspicious watchfulness.

There is a saying in India, "What is made in the cradle, goes to the cremation ground." We take with us every experience of our lives and carry them as the backdrop against which we view what happens today.

What happens in those first few moments after birth are important. They are moments when amazing things happen.

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A fetus becomes a person. A woman becomes a mother. And in a phenomenon called bonding the new mother and the new baby fall in love with each other for life.

These moments can never be remade. If they are interrupted, they are lost forever.

Instead of this chaotic entry, imagine how much better it would be if all babies were born into an environment suited to their innocence and newness, like a room filled with soft lights and music, the same sort of room in which they were made. What if after being born, they were allowed to lay quietly in their mother's arms, bare skin against bare skin, heart beat to heart beat, slowly awakening to this new world? We could do this for our newborns, could give this gift of consideration and thus create a generation of souls who never had to know the anguish of being born.

There is a book called
Birth Without Violence
by Frederick Leboyer. In the first week I was pregnant, I read it and fell in love with its concepts. I was awed and inspired by the care given to newborns, as reported by Leboyer. I fell in love with the babies, their peaceful, dark eyes gazing serenely at me. This book introduced me to what I already knew: babies are miracles. They are tiny celestial beings who have somehow decided to exist within bodies and in whom, if you look deep enough, you can see the secrets of the universe. So they deserve the kindest, gentlest entry into this world we can provide.

Waterbirth has expanded Leboyer's concepts. In a traditional natural birth, coming down the birth canal into the waiting world, a child will meet cold air. Coming out into warm water, a child feels only familiarity. Safe and secure, he does not breathe because he has come from water into water and he finds that the world he has entered is not so different from the world he has left behind. When brought up to the surface, his face meets the air and he breathes at last. Nestled in his mother's arms, he feels the security of her skin, and hears the soothing hum of her voice as she speaks words of wonder and love. He awakens gently in this kind of environment. He opens and unfolds.